Wanda lifted her black lashes pathetically. “If you knew how I hated all that sort of thing. How I long for a sane, serene, uncomplicated life . . .”
“In the suburbs doing all your own housework. Yes, I know all that. But I also know that there are some things one doesn’t care to confide in a press agent or even a maid.”
Wanda moved a little nearer and her voice dropped. “I came to see you. I have to tell you something, but—I didn’t want anyone else to know. I’m afraid.”
There was a whir of wings. Wanda started convulsively and clenched her hands. The canary flew overhead and alighted on the railing of the staircase. “What on earth is that bird doing here?” she demanded.
“That bird is a valuable witness,” answered Basil.
“I—don’t understand.”
“I think you do,” returned Basil. “I think that is what you came to tell me. I saw how frightened you were this evening when Inspector Foyle asked you about the canary, and you were frightened that day at your house when I showed an oblique interest in canaries in general. You suspected the truth the moment you saw that item in the newspaper about the canary several days ago. The possibility of murder was drawn to your attention before the murder took place, when the police asked your press agent if the canary business was a publicity stunt of yours. The murderer saw that you suspected him. Actress as you are you could not hide your fear of him. And when you realized his suspicion of your suspicion you believed your own life was no longer safe. You want him put under lock and key as soon as possible for your own safety and you’ve come here to tell me about him. Haven’t you?”
“Do you really think he would . . . kill me?”
“How else could he protect himself?”
In the dim light Wanda’s rouged lips were dark against her ghastly white face. She swayed and clutched the railing of the stairway to steady herself.
“There’s one thing I’d like to know,” went on Basil. “Does the Tilbury clock keep time accurately?”
A shaky smile quivered on Wanda’s lips. “So you noticed? So few people do!”
“You mean it’s not accurate?”
Wanda’s smile steadied. “Outdoor clocks on tall buildings are never reliable to the split second unless they’re covered with glass.”
“Why not?”
“Because the hands are blown by the wind. It’s not strong enough to affect the hour hand, but at that height on a blustery day the wind does alter the position of the minute hand by several minutes if it’s blowing in the right direction. Most people never notice it, because they only glance at such a clock now and then. But I have good reason to remember it. When I had my first small part on Broadway I used to live in that hotel on 45th Street where most actors live in their salad days. I had a room in the back with windows looking toward 44th and Broadway like the room Seymour Hutchins has now. I set my watch by the Tilbury clock and was ten minutes late for an appointment with a producer who had promised me a good supporting role. He happened to be a crank about punctuality, and I did not get the job. I made inquiries then and learned that on really windy days the Tilbury clock may be fast or slow by as much as ten minutes. They ought to put a glass over it, but I suppose that would spoil the looks of the building.”
“The police will want to know that and other things,” said Basil. “Are you going to tell?”
“I . . .” Wanda’s mouth opened and closed. “I . . .”
Something flashed between them with the blue glitter of steel. There was a singing vibration. In the wall behind Wanda a silver knife handle quivered half a foot from her head. The steel blade was embedded in the wall.
Wanda screamed like an animal. “No, I won’t tell! Never!” Her knees could not support her. She sank to the floor in a pool of fur. Her mouth was shapeless with terror. Her eyes stared into the darkness. “Put out the light!” she whispered to Basil. “Please! He saw me coming here this evening. He knew you were alone in the theater—as I did—and he understood that I was coming to see you and why. I think he plans to kill us both. Oh, do put out the light!”
A dark figure moved out of the shadows and set foot on the iron stairway. “Don’t follow me. I have other knives—the whole surgical kit—and they’re all sharp now.” Light feet ran up the stairs. A man’s head and shoulders were silhouetted against a glittering slice of stars. Someone was passing through the fire door.
Basil took the stairs two at a time. The door was open. He took a step onto the top landing of the fire escape. A dark figure was waiting for him. Only the face and the knife were pale in the starlight.
Chapter Fourteen. Scène-à-Faire
LEONARD MARTIN SPOKE his lines on cue: “Reckless, aren’t you, Dr. Willing? A little too reckless! You’ll be found in the alley tomorrow morning with a knife through your heart, and every bone in your body broken by your fall. But they’ll never catch me. Wanda’s too frightened to talk even though she’s the one who’ll be suspected, because she’s the one who asked Milhau for a stage-door key tonight. I learned to pick any kind of lock years ago when I played Raffles—a concession to Milhau’s realism. I slipped in by the stage door when the patrolman was on the other side of the building, and I can slip away now in the black-out unobserved. There won’t be anything to connect me with any of these crimes. I stabbed Ingelow and Adeane without leaving one single clue for the police to work on.” There was perverted pride in Leonard’s voice and something else—doubt.
Basil played up to both. “You were clever—but not quite clever enough. Inspector Foyle has evidence that you are guilty.”
“You’re lying! I don’t believe it!”
Basil knew that if he lived he would never forget these perilous moments watching that murderous face in the starlight high above the blacked-out city. But if he could only play upon the actors’ instinct for dramatizing every situation and keep Leonard talking long enough. . . .
“You overlooked three main clues,” said Basil calmly. “A clock, a fly, and a canary.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“When we found that Ingelow had been murdered, your watch agreed with mine while Rodney Tait’s was ten minutes slower. This afternoon in Foyle’s office I found that my watch was ten minutes fast when I compared it with the correct time given by the Naval Observatory on the radio. So Rodney’s watch must have been right two nights ago. Why was mine fast? Because I set it by the Tilbury clock just before the murder, and the Tilbury clock gains several minutes on windy days. Why was yours fast on the same occasion? Because you had just set your watch by the Tilbury clock, too. The Tilbury clock can’t be seen from any point in the theater except the top of this fire escape. So you were the dark figure on the fire escape the night Ingelow was murdered. It was you who dropped Wanda’s script when I passed underneath, and it was you who underscored the line that Hutchins spoke: He cannot escape now, every hand is against him. . . . From the first, Hutchins said he had not underscored it in Wanda’s script, and there was no reason to doubt him as he was not under suspicion. So the line must have been underscored by someone who did not speak it in the play. Why? When does anyone mark a line in a play that he doesn’t speak himself? When it’s a cue for some bit of stage business. The line you underscored in Wanda’s script was not only a clue, but also a cue for a bit of business; and that ‘business’ was murder. You had to have a cue for stabbing Ingelow on the stage in order to fit his murder smoothly into the chronological pattern of the play, so there would be no danger of another actor interrupting you at that moment. That pattern was changed at the last moment when the actor playing Desiré fell ill, and his few lines were cut. You first learned this when I did—at the art gallery a few hours before the opening. When you got to the theater you snatched up Wanda’s script—the only script where the deletions were marked—in order to see if they affected your cue for murder. The cut had to be a line spoken by another actor when you were alone with Vladimir, and the omission of Desiré might have altered one of those conditions. Or it may be that one of Desiré’s lines was your original cue, and you had to find another one at short notice when his lines were cut. Anyway, in your haste you marked your cue for murder automatically as you would any other cue. You went out on the fire escape so you could set your watch by the Tilbury clock and time the cue as exactly as possible. As Milhau told me, you had never lived at Hutchins’ little hotel overlooking the Tilbury clock, so you had never had occasion to notice that the clock was inaccurate. The script fell out of your hands when you were startled by my appearance in the alley. My appearance was startling to you because you mistook me for Ingelow, the man you were planning to murder, just as Wanda did when I knocked on her door a few moments later. We were the same height, and we were dressed alike that evening as I noticed when I first saw him. You dared not recover the script from me in the alley for fear of exciting my suspicion of you when Ingelow was stabbed on cue. There wasn’t time then for you to select another cue.